It was a mixed feeling walking along the road... I was happy, being with friends, enjoying freedom, breathing in fresh air and walking carefree; on the other side, I missed aayi pappa... With many different things going on in my mind, I was lost... Some times you do miss dear ones a lot, but it is natural and small outings like these keep you going... So, after a short walk of around 45 minutes under mild sunlight, we reached the railway station again. It was almost 3 and we had two choices; we either go to Balmuri falls or see Shrirangapattana and the historical places in and around it. After some negotiation with the local auto-rickshaw drivers, we settled for the latter. With three persons in each auto, we started our mini tour of Shrirangapattana.... We saw the Dungeon, water gate, Place of Tippu's death, Jumma Masjid in a short time. We then headed towards Dariya Daulat bagh. It was Tippu's summer palace and now has been converted into a museum depicting Tippu's empire, coins, some paintings, etc. The paintings on the walls of the palace are good too... The garden surrounding the summer palace is well maintained and calm; a good place to have a stroll in the evenings :). Everyone of us sat down on the lush green lawn in the garden and talked for a while... The auto drivers were eager to finish the tour as soon as possible, but who would let them to do that? :)
The next stop was at the Gumbaz. The place where Tippu and his whole family has been cremated. Gumbaz is a 60 feet tall tomb inside which are cremated Tippu, his father (I think that is Hyder Ali, anyways history was never my favourite) and his mother. Gumbaz is also surrounded by lawn and garden. Again, we sat down a bit and then came to the entrance of Gumbaz. It was about 5.30 and what better than tender coconuts to quench the thirst? The next place that we visited was the Sangama. It is a place where Cauvery meets two other rivers ( now, don't expect me to remember the names of the river)... Water everywhere! There were boats too :) The small, round ones that small fishermen generally use... Wasting no time, all of us got into one boat and there we were floating on the Cauvery for the second time in the day. The currents were swift and the two boatmen were skilfully steering the boat. It was a real short boat ride, but was thrilling...
We had completed all the places in Shrirangapattana and the only place left was the Ranganathaswamy temple. It was very near to the railway station, so the autos dropped us there and the tour was officially over. At 300 rupees for the auto tour, we were happy :) We got into the temple and got a glimpse of Ranganathaswamy. Everyone was happy that we had a good outing so far. We then proceeded towards the railway station and to our surprise, the Tutocorin Express going towards Bangalore was arriving on the platform! We were being too lucky! I asked the person at the ticket counter if we could get tickets to KR Puram (KR Puram station is very near our house and we would not have to take a bus from the Bangalore station) and also if the train would go to KR Puram. The person gave us the tickets to KR Puram and told that we could go to Bangalore on the train. We were very happy, we rushed into the train and found comfortable place to be seated. Meanwhile, Soma headed towards Mysore. So, it was five of us going back to Bangalore now...
Again, we had dosa and Maddur vada on the train and the 3-hour journey completed in a jiffy... Chandrakanth, as he did in the morning, sleep all along the way :).
at 9.35pm, we were at the Bangalore City railway station. KR Puram is just 16km from there and we were eager to reach there. The train stopped for 30 minutes ( we could have easily reached home by 10.15 if we had had got down and taken a bus) We chose to travel by train and see how it feels to alight from train at KR Puram.
The Train started moving... The next station was the Bangalore Cantonment, and our KR Puram station was to be the next. All of us were tired, and eagerly waiting to get down. We got up and headed towards the door. Looking out of the door we could see the Old Madras road, the big bazaar, and vehicles moving around... The train was gradually reducing speed... All of a sudden, the train took a diversion just before the KR Puram station!!! It picked up speed. We were now sure that we were not going to reach the KR Puram station... From the open door in the train, we saw our home, and we were going in some unknown direction!!!
Where was the next station? Will we ever stop and be able to get back home? All these things crossed my mind. Vinay called pappa and told that we were going somewhere unknown :) and you don't need to guess the reaction... 5 minutes since we saw our home disappearing in the dark, the train was moving full speed... it was exciting, we were going to be lost! 5 Minutes later, the train stopped in a small station and all of us got down in a hurry... We were half relieved. Now, we had to find a way to go home... Did I tell the name of the station? It was Karmellaram if I am not wrong... We had never heard of this place before, but we were sure that we had not come too far from Bangalore. We went to the station master and apparently, he was the only person visible in the radius of 1km!!!
He told us that the main road was just a kilometer ahead and we could get a tempo or any other transport from there to Bangalore. The last bus to Bangalore was at 9.15pm and there were none after that. All of us looked at the phones and the time was around 11pm. Anyways, we had to do something... At this point, I was feeling as if everything was a fantasy, I had never imagined such a situation before!!
We reached the main road, but there was no single person on the streets, all shops were closed and there were a lot of granite-selling units, all of which were closed. We tried stopping a few vehicles passing by on the road, but none would stop! Why would they? After walking a kilometer further, we saw a small hotel that was closing for the day. There were some people... oh! so nice to see some people around! we asked them if we could get any cab or bus to Bangalore. They said that it was highly unlikely, and this place was around 20km away from Bangalore. Incidentally, we saw a cab just opposite to the hotel. We inquired if we could be dropped to our home. He agreed, but some issue over the charge made the cab disappear in no time :) Now, we were being very unlucky...
By this time, Vinay had called his office and asked them to send a cab. The cab was on its way and all of us were relieved. There was some confusion about our location but the cab driver found us. It was 12.20 by then. The cab dropped us till Vinay's office in Bagmane tech Park and we walked a bit to reach home.
1.00 am... The ordeal was over. After walking for roughly about 12km in the day, being lost in an unknown place in the middle of the night, we had successfully reached home! We could not think of anything other than sleeping, and that is what we did.
Being lost in the concrete jungle is scary and exciting!! That is why I call it the Urban Adventure.
:)
-THE END-
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